Tigo<\/span> Rwanda, a telecom brand owned by Millicom<\/span> Cellular International (MIC), recently inaugurated its mobile money services in Rwanda, targeted at subscribers with limited or no access to banking services.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Tigo<\/span> Rwanda is the second mobile company to launch such a service after its major competitor MTN<\/span> Rwanda launched its mobile money product last year.<\/p>\n Tigo<\/span> has similar services in Ghana and Tanzania.<\/p>\n Rwanda\u2019s rural areas have limited access to financial services, with the central bank saying only 1.7 million deposit accounts had been registered by December 2010 out of a population of 9 million.<\/p>\n With about 3.3 million mobile subscribers shared between MTN<\/span> and Tigo<\/span> as of January this year, Rwandan mobile users can utilise<\/span> the technology to deposit and withdraw money and can pay electricity bills and school fees via text messages.<\/p>\n “Tigo<\/span> Cash is basically a wallet on your mobile phone. You don\u2019t have to have a bank account,” said Tom Gutjahr<\/span>, Tigo<\/span> Rwanda\u2019s chief executive. To sign up for the service is free but one has to be above 18 years and a Tigo<\/span> subscriber with a valid identity card.<\/p>\n Non Tigo<\/span> subscribers will not be able to register for the service but can receive cash on their network from a Tigo<\/span> Cash registered peson<\/span> in any part of the country any time any day.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are not a \u201cTigo<\/span> Cash\u201d user, you will still be able to receive money from other Tigo<\/span> Cash users,\u201d the CEO said.<\/p>\n Licensed to operate in Rwanda two years ago, MCL<\/span> said Tigo<\/span> Cash can send between $1 and $550.<\/p>\n John Sebabi<\/span>, head of payment systems at Rwanda\u2019s central bank, said the new service would deepen financial services.<\/p>\n “If the number of mobile phone exceeds that of bank accounts, then access to financial services is growing which is line with our objectives of increasing access to such services,” he said.<\/p>\n The Product Manager, Tongai<\/span> Maramba<\/span> announced that Banque<\/span> Commerciale<\/span> du Rwanda (BCR<\/span>) would be the host of the Tigo<\/span> Cash trust account.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tigo Rwanda, a telecom brand owned by Millicom Cellular International (MIC), recently inaugurated its mobile money services in Rwanda, targeted at subscribers with limited or no access to banking services. Tigo Rwanda is the second mobile company to launch such a service after its major competitor MTN Rwanda launched its mobile money product last year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75],"byline":[278],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-homenews","byline-joram-muhoozi"],"bylines":[{"id":278,"name":"Joram Muhoozi","slug":"joram-muhoozi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":278,"name":"Joram Muhoozi","slug":"joram-muhoozi","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}